Pliny the Younger

“ It is the touching eloquence of one who could not write otherwise than gracefully.
Among the pupils of Quintilian, Pliny the younger took the highest place in the literature of his age. He was born in Como, 61 A.D., and adopted and educated by his maternal uncle, the elder Pliny. He attained great celebrity as a pleader, and stood high in favor with the emperor. His works consist of a panegyric on Trajan, and a collection of letters in ten books. The panegyric is a piece of courtly flattery in accordance with the cringing and fawning manners of the times. ”

“ Or he spends a day in the open air hunting, yet never omits to take with him a book to read or tablets on which to write, in case the scent is cold and game is not plentiful. In short, the Letters of Pliny the Younger give us a picture of social life as it was in the closing years of the first, and the opening years of the second century of the Christian era, which is as fascinating as it is absolutely unique. ”

“ The, in all ways very delightful, Epistles [351] of the younger Pliny are not least delightful in the line of literary criticism. |Pliny the Younger: Criticism on the Letters.| Pliny was a confirmed man of letters. In no member of the most interesting group of late Flavian and early Antonine writers do we see more clearly the “bookish” tone which so largely pervaded Roman society. ”

“ There is a story told by Pliny the younger, which so much resembles many that we have heard in youth, that nothing is required but a change of name, place, and date, to thoroughly domesticate it amongst us. ”

“ He was always ready to believe the best of any one, always prepared to do a friend a service, devoted to his wife and her relations, and anxious to deal justly and honourably with all men. We have called him vain, and vain he undoubtedly was to an extraordinary degree. But Pliny's vanity is never offensive. The very naivete with which he acknowledges his failing disarms all criticism and merely renders it amusing. Indeed, it is doubtful whether he would have admitted that it was a failing at all, inasmuch as it was his love of praise which spurred him on to literary endeavour. ”

“ It is hardly a matter of surprise that, fed on such meats, they should wax scornful, and deride their hungry fellow-creatures. It is even less amazing that these fellow-creatures should weary from time to time of the crumbs that fall from their table. It is told of Pliny the younger that, being invited to a dinner, he consented to come on the express condition that the conversation should abound in Socratic discourses. Here was a man equally insensible to ennui and to the sufferings of others. ”

“ He has for me the close and affectionate regard of one young man for another—for he is only a few years younger than myself—yet at the same time he pays me the deference due to a man of years, for he is as anxious that I should mould and form his character as I used to be that you and your son should mould mine. ”

“ The overflowing humanity of Pliny's temper breaks out upon all occasions, but he discovers it in nothing more strongly than by the impression which this little story appears to have made upon him. True benevolence, indeed, extends itself through the whole compass of existence, and sympathises with the distress of every creature of sensation. ”

“ One need only to read the gentle replies of the Emperor Trajan to the younger Pliny, to see that, in that reign at least, there was a great change and that the conception of duty in the modern sense was creeping into a military world. Pliny himself, in a letter to Cannius, describes how he settled five hundred thousand sesterces (about $20,000) on the city of Como for the maintenance of children, “who were born of good families”—an act as traceable to the growing protective tendency as to Pliny’s patriotism and love of glory. ”

“ It is wonderful the way he carries through anything which he has set his mind upon. It pleased him to mourn for his son—and never man mourned like him; it pleased him to erect a number of statues and busts to his memory, and the result is that he is keeping all the workshops busy; he is having his boy represented in colours, in wax, in bronze, in silver, in gold, ivory, and marble—always his boy. He himself just lately got together a large audience and read a memoir of his life—of the boy's life ”

“ He writes with delight, but without pretending to be a connoisseur, of an antique statuette which he had purchased out of a legacy. Some rich men in Rome had the mania for antiques—Corinthian bronzes were the rage in Pliny's day—as badly as those who haunt our modern sale-rooms. Pliny's hobby, if he had been living in our time, would probably have been books. He is one of the most bookish men of antiquity. Wherever he went his books went with him; in his carriage, in his gardens they never left his side. He betrays, moreover, a taste for the beauties of nature which is distinctly un-Roman. ”

“ He praises her intelligence, her economy, her love for him, and the interest she takes in his career. When he is pleading in the courts she has messengers to bring her word of the success of the speech and the result of the trial; when he is giving a reading to his friends, Calpurnia sits behind a curtain and greedily drinks in the praises they bestow. She sets his verses to music, and Hispulla, who made the match, is neatly rewarded at the conclusion of the letter by Pliny saying that both he and his wife vie with one another in seeing who can thank her the more. ”

“ So far, his tender years have naturally kept him close by your side; he has had tutors at home, where there is little or no chance of his going wrong. But now his studies must take him out of doors, and we must look out for a Latin rhetorician with a good reputation for school discipline, for modesty, and above all, for good morals. For our young friend has been endowed, in addition to his other gifts of nature and fortune, with striking physical beauty, and at his slippery age we must find him not only a teacher but a guardian who will keep him straight. ”

“ So agreeably, indeed, that if ever I should arrive at old age, there is no man whom I would sooner choose for my model, for nothing can be more perfect in arrangement than his mode of life. I look upon order in human actions, especially at that advanced age, with the same sort of pleasure as I behold the settled course of the heavenly bodies. In young men, indeed, a little confusion and disarrangement is all well enough: but in age, when business is unseasonable, and ambition indecent, all should be composed and uniform. This rule Spurinna observes with the most religious consistency. ”

“ However, to cut the story short,—though I would gladly say more, because such performances are all the more charming when given by a young man, and all the rarer when he is of noble birth,—as soon as the reading was concluded, I embraced the youth with great cordiality, and by showering praises upon him—which are always the best incentive when giving advice—I urged him to go on as he had begun, and hold out to his descendants the light which his own ancestors had held out to him. ”

“ But as there is a certain seasonable accommodation to the manners of the times, not only extremely Consistent with, but highly conducive to, the interests of virtue, Pliny, probably, may affect a greater latitude than he in general approved, in order to draw off his friend from that stiffness and unyielding disposition which might prejudice those of a gayer turn against him, and consequently lessen the beneficial influence of his virtues upon the world. ”

“ When I am about to plead, what anxiety she shows; when the pleading is over, how pleased she is! She has relays of people to bring her news as to the reception I get, the applause I excite, and the verdicts I win from the judges. Whenever I recite, she sits near me screened from the audience by a curtain, and her ears greedily drink in what people say to my credit. She even sings my verses and sets them to music, though she has no master to teach her but love, which is the best instructor of all. ”

“ Though you always repose confidence in what I say, it is difficult, I know, for you to credit my account of an absent man when I say that he possesses splendid industry, probity, learning, wit, application, and powers of memory, as you will discover for yourself when you have tried him. I only wish that our age was so productive of men of high character that there were others to whom you ought to give preference over Bassus ”

“ CII — TRAJAN TO PLINY
IT was agreeable to me to learn by your letter that the army and the provincials seconded you, with the most joyful unanimity, in those vows which you paid and renewed to the immortal gods for my preservation and prosperity.
CIII — To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN
WE have celebrated, with all the warmth of that pious zeal we justly ought, the day on which, by a most happy succession, the protection of mankind was committed over into your hands; recommending to the gods, from whom you received the empire, the object of your public vows and congratulations. ”

“ To have been distinguished by the favour and friendship of a monarch of so exalted a character is an honour that reflects the brightest lustre upon our author; as to have been served and celebrated by a courtier of Pliny's genius and virtues is the noblest monunient of glory that could have been raised to Trajan. ”

“ XXXI — TRAJAN TO PLINY
THERE is no occasion, my dearest Secundus, to draw off any soldiers in order to guard the prisons. Let us rather persevere in the ancient customs observed in this province, of employing the public slaves for that purpose; and the fidelity with which they shall execute their duty will depend much upon your care and strict discipline. It is greatly to be feared, as you observe, if the soldiers should be mixed with the public slaves, they will mutually trust to each other, and by that means grow so much the more negligent. ”

“ My subject, indeed, seemed naturally to lend itself to this (may I venture to call it?) emulation; consisting, as it did, almost entirely in a vehement style of address, even to a degree sufficient to have awakened me (if only I am capable of being awakened) out of that indolence in which I have long reposed. I have not however altogether neglected the flowers of rhetoric of my favourite Marc-Tully, wherever I could with propriety step out of my direct road, to enjoy a more flowery path: for it was energy, not austerity, at which I aimed. ”

“ But in former times (so my elders tell me) no youth, even of the best families, was allowed in unless introduced by some person of consular dignity. As things are now, since every fence of modesty and decorum is broken down, and all distinctions are levelled and confounded, the present young generation, so far from waiting to be introduced, break in of their own free will. The audience at their heels are fit attendants upon such orators ”

“ What a different picture from anything we find in Juvenal, who would fain have us believe that Messalina was the type of the average Roman matron of his day!
Such were some of Pliny's friends. His distinguished position at the Bar drew him a host of clients; his official status and his friendship with Trajan gave him the entree into any society he liked. He was, moreover, a man of considerable wealth, generous, even lavish, with his money, and his disposition was one of the kindest. ”

“ He even composes splendid lyrics on the lives of all the most famous men of the past. Surely a man who is such an intense admirer of the virtue of others must know how to exemplify a crowd of virtues in his own person. Lucius Silanus quite deserved the honour that has been paid to him, and Capito in seeking to immortalise his memory has immortalised his own quite as much. For it is not more honourable and distinguished to have a statue of one's own in the Forum of the Roman People than to be the author of some one else's statue being placed there. ”

“ I found I was the only one left who had practised in both, so sweeping were the changes effected by the slenderness of human life and the fickleness of fortune. Some of those who used to plead in my young days are dead, others are in exile; age and ill health have convinced others that their speaking days are over; some are enjoying of their own free will the pleasures of retirement, or are in command of armies, or have been withdrawn from civil employments by becoming the personal friends of the Emperor. ”

“ It will be the more durable, according to its trueness to life and correctness of detail. Farewell.
3.XI.—TO JULIUS GENITOR. Our friend Artemidorus has so much goodness of heart that he always exaggerates the services his friends render him, and hence, in my case, though it is true that I have done him a good turn, he speaks of it in far too glowing language. When the philosophers were banished from the city I was staying with him in his suburban residence, and the visit was the more talked about and the more dangerous to me, because I was praetor at the time. ”

“ This will rouse and stimulate our young men to cultivate every worthy principle, when they see such rewards bestowed upon one of their own years, provided he deserve them: at the same time that men of quality will be encouraged to beget children and to have the joy and satisfaction of leaving a worthy race behind, if their children survive them, or of so glorious a consolation, should they survive their children. Looking at it in this light then, I am glad, upon public grounds, that a statue is decreed Cottius: and for my own sake too, just as much ”